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Beauty and the Beast |1|

Beauty and the Beast A2

Do you recognise this image? This film is

a new version of the classic animated film.

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Beauty and the Beast |2|

It is a classic fairytale and a classic animated film. Now Beauty and the Beast is a musical film, starring Emma Watson as Belle.

It’s a French fairytale, first published in the 18th century. The 1991 Disney film version was the first animated film to be nominated for Best Film at the Oscars. This new version is based on the animated film

Once upon a time there was a handsome but arrogant prince. One night there was a terrible storm. An old woman wanted to come into the Prince’s castle. As payment, she offered a rose. The prince refused. The woman was an enchantress. She punished the prince by putting a curse on the castle: the prince was transformed into a beast and his servants into animated objects. The curse will only stop if the prince can learn to love, and find someone to love him, before the enchanted rose dies.

An old artist got lost in another storm and the prince imprisoned him. His beautiful, independent daughter offered to be the prince’s prisoner in exchange…. The Beast is really

a prince but he must learn to love.

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Beauty and the Beast |3|

Emma Watson played Hermione Granger in all the Harry Potter films. Now she has participated in another favourite story from her childhood: the Disney film. “I have loved Beauty and the Beast since I was four years old,” she says, “Belle was this feisty young woman who had ambitions and was incredibly independent and wanted to see the world.”

Emma Watson has many of the qualities she admires in Belle. She was an excellent student. She is active helping the United Nations promote women's rights. In her spare time, she loves fashion. So how could she resist playing a fairytale heroine with princess dresses and a feminist attitude? n

Belle lives with her artist father.

The Beast, Dan Stevens and the Beauty, Emma Watson.